Rating: 
Summary: in Excellent condition
Review: Book was exactly looks like new. and also very fast delivery.
Rating: 
Summary: Weak points too strong
Review: I agree with the other reviewers that the material is basically presented well, but that this book is outdated and too expensive for the presentation of a fairly humble amount of information. I would like to add two points. First, this book shares an all too common problem with IT books in that an editor should have taken another look at this book to catch the numerous grammar errors (notably in subject/verb agreement) and redundant passages. Second, this book has a fictional case study scenario at the end of every chapter. I found these to be poorly thought-out and not particularly helpful, especially when compared to the very informative, well-chosen actual case studies to which the authors did not devote enough time. I suggest teachers use a different book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for the Newbee
Review: I had to get this book because of college. It is a great book for anyone trying to understand basic concepts. It is very easy reading and keeps you interested. I would not recommend it for anyone who has a good understanding of communcations and networking.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for the Newbee
Review: I had to get this book because of college. It is a great book for anyone trying to understand basic concepts. It is very easy reading and keeps you interested. I would not recommend it for anyone who has a good understanding of communcations and networking.
Rating:
Summary: FANTASTIC!! If you buy one book, make it this one!!
Review: I just finished a graduate course using this book as the textbook. At first I thought "Hmmmph - another OSI Layer book." What I learned is that it is very current, going into Blue tooth, Internet II, and all the latest Wireless protocols, too. Like consider the multiple Gigabit networking architectures, including optical and copper. This is "one for the shelf" of every do it your selfer wanting to learn and it reads like a "how to" manual that you'll use. Whether you want to learn, bone up, or be the one who has all the right vocabulary at the drinking fountain - this is a book you should give a chance to. It surprised me and I manage a significant IS dept. I think you will consider it a value-added addition to your library!
Rating:
Summary: Full of Contradictions and Misstatements
Review: It is rather surprising that this textbook is in iths 6th edition and that it is so full of misstatements and contradictions in almost every chapter. Chapter 6 is probably the worst. I am teaching from this text at a community college as an adjunct, and hence I had no input into the choice of this book. I am constantly having to type up lists of corrections to hand out to my students! Some of the errors are frankly laughable. Also, the authors do not provide an "errata" list on the Web page for this book (at Wiley Publishers), like so many authors do nowadays, recognizing the probability of errors in a textbook like this on a complicated subject.Now, upon very close reading, I can see how so much contradictory information got into this book: There were two authors who worked on different chapters and/or sections, but they did not work closely with each other to keep from contradicting each other. The editors did a poor job in recognizing contraditions. And it seems that no one worked on providing continuity in the textbook. In the Preface, the authors thank their reviewers for their assistance, but they openly admit that this was done "often under short deadlines". The worst mistake in the entire textbook is Chapter Eight (page 237), where they state: "Second, unlike bridges, switches don't learn addresses; switches need to have addresses defined explicitly." (They are speaking of switches that are used in LANs.) As we should well know, this kind of switch learns its address table, just as a bridge does. Could it be that the authors have confused a regular (Layer 2) switch with a Layer 3 switch? Here is a key concept that it not presented well: There is poor coverage in this textbook about how data packets are sent from one protocol layer to the next by adding/removing headers and trailers to the data packet, and leaving what was given to them otherwise unchanged. There are frequently concepts that are used without being clearly defined or explained. For example, it is very difficult to find out about packets or packet-switching. Shouldn't this important topic be explained in Chapter 1 or Chapter 2? Anyway, I do not recommend this textbook at all, and I have selected a better one for the next semester. Interesting thing is that this is a textbook that was poor in the second edition, but the new third edition is an Order of Magnitude improvement over the previous one.
Rating: 
Summary: Read page 4, 7th edition of the text
Review: The first reading page of this text has four grammatical errors. This in itself speaks of how poorly the text must have been edited. What a rip off for the price of this book. I could read it three times and I would still not have sufficient knowledge of networks or data communications to pass an MCSE test. For the $92.50 that I spent I could have bought. a.)Tcp/Ip Exam Prep Guide. b.) Tcp/Ip Exam cram guide. c.)I still would have had $10 or $15 left over to go towards Flash cards or something else. Then at the end of the day I would be able to sit and pass a certification test. Stay far from this. If your college or Univerity is using this text, then they are idiots.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent but Outdated
Review: The layout of this book could have used some work, and I understand the later editions do a better job, but it nevertheless provided a foundation of networking and datacomm principles. The material is out of date, so since there is a newer edition out, I would recommend it over this edition.
Rating:
Summary: Decent but Outdated
Review: The layout of this book could have used some work, and I understand the later editions do a better job, but it nevertheless provided a foundation of networking and datacomm principles. The material is out of date, so since there is a newer edition out, I would recommend it over this edition.
Rating:
Summary: why others hate this book--and why they're wrong
Review: This book is the ideal book for the novice networking geek wanting a general overview of communications technologies. I just finished reading with some dismay the avalanche of negative complaints about the book. I haven't read the 7th edition, but I read the 6th edition and have a sense about the book (and by the way, note that amazon many comments are directed to that edition and not the most recent), and I have a pretty good handle on what the book is like. It looks like a school textbook because that's what it is. It's sort of boring-looking, and it even has exercises and case studies. When reading it, one is tempted to think that information is watered down, or the book is out of date or that it is useless. Because the book doesn't give a step-by-step account of how to do things, one is tempted to think it's not a good book. But initial impressions are deceiving. When I read the 6th edition in 1999, I initially felt precisely the same way about the value of this book. (I suspect most of the negative comments here came from people who had it forced on them by a teacher for a class). The book does NOT teach you how to network or how to configure TCP-IP or how to set up your home network. What it does instead is treat pretty thoroughly communications technologies, protocols, packet technology, switches, error-checking, backbone. It discusses everything very simply and in very clear language. Also, it covers the diversity of technologies out there, including many legacy ones (and the reader may initially see this as a sign that the book is out of date--the reverse is true; this legacy information is often hard to find in a single place). I have bought several books on linux networking, home networking, windows networking and computer security, and I can safely say that this book contains lots of stuff you don't find elsewhere. The writing style is rather bland (I'll admit), and some of the cases studies are not that challenging. Also, it's frustrating to read because it doesn't provide any OS-specific info. That is not necessarily a disadvantage. A lot of the OS-specific books become fixated on one particular implementation, and don't do a good job talking about general things like protocols. But this book does that very thoroughly; it has great diagrams, a very logical flow and a way of making the most difficult concepts seem crystal clear. (I feel I can comment on this; I work as a technical writer and instructional system designer). One concern I have is that the 7th edition might not contain enough information about wireless or ipv6 (in the 6th edition, they were not covered very well, but hey, it came out in 1998). I suspect the 7th edition will include significantly more information. I'll be the first to admit that reading this book alone won't teach you how to do that home network (for that I'd recommend "networking by example" by barry press) The book doesn't give you an immediate payoff; on the other hand, I can safely say that over my two years working at dell, I've been pleasantly surprised how useful the information turned out to be (especially the stuff about error checking and data transfer. So, to the students out there who are griping about this "useless" and overpriced book assigned to them, watch out; in two or three years you may be singing a different tune. IN SUMMARY: You'll need another book about OS Networking, but this book will give a thorough overview on lots of things.
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